Man acquitted of all charges after 20 years

20 years after being convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment for abetting suicide of his wife, Bombay High Court recently acquitted a person of all charges.

Ankush Padhare was 34 when he was sentenced under sections 498-A (dowry harassment) and section 306 (abetment).

While acquitting Ankush Padhare, Justice PN Deshmukh said, “On considering the evidence on record, prosecution is found to have failed to establish the charges, appeal is liable to be allowed by setting aside conviction and sentence awarded by the trial Court.”

As per the prosecution case, Padhare and his now deceased wife Rani got married in 1987. Initially she was treated well, but later alleged that her husband and in-laws started making demands for dowry. Since she could not meet them, they mentally and physically harassed her. She drank poison on January 31, 1995 and committed suicide to escape from this torture.

However, Padhare, denied all the charges leveled against him. Moreover, the letter that Rani had allegedly written to her parents has not been investigated to see whether it was actually written by her.

The court perused the evidence and rejected the prosecution claim of harassment based solely on the alleged letters written by the deceased to her parents, it said “The approach of the learned trial Judge in relying upon these letters, is not at all acceptable having considering the fact that there is no investigation on record as to whether the letters are in the handwriting of the deceased.”